Modern Muslim Movement: The Jakarta Monorail

Introduction 

The introduction of the Jakarta monorail was set to be a strategic economic productivity plan in Indonesia. Jakarta is Indonesia's economic and political capital with the city and its metropolitan area contributing a 16% to the growth of Indonesia. In the year 2010, Jakarta represented about a fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Indonesia (Firman, Hudalah, & Salim, 2018). The Jakarta metropolis is characterized by poor public transportation with the city being estimated to lose around 1.3 billion US dollars to substandard transportation infrastructure back in the year 2005. The loss involved in poor transport within Jakarta in 2020 is forecasted to be five times that of 2005 (Firman, Hudalah, & Salim, 2018). The alleviation of the problem requires a complex web if private and public partners to bring the realization of the Jakarta monorail, a project that was planned for by the government. Of course, the project will incur significant costs in the design and construction but will bring about more benefits to the Jakarta metropolis if completed. 

Key Decisions Made Within the Case and Their Reasons 

The first crucial decision that was made in the case regarded the construction of the monorail system for the residents and workers of the city of Jakarta connecting the downtown to the other urban and residential areas located within the metropolis. The decision was made to ease the gridlock that takes place in the city and poor transportation means for the public. Jakarta's metropolis is among the most expansive across the globe alongside the Tokyo and New York metropolitan in Japan and the United States of America respectively. Due to its size and the lack of alternative public transportation means, Jakarta's traffic is among the worst in the world, and the issue is exacerbating as more residents and workers within the city own vehicles. According to a study performed ranking various cities around the globe concerning the level of their traffic snarl-ups, it was concluded that Jakarta has the 17th worst traffic problem in the world. Los Angeles has been reported to have the worst traffic snarl-ups in the world with more cities in the US making it to the top ten such as New York City and Miami. Across the European continent, the worst cities concerning traffic, according to the research were London in the United Kingdom and Paris in France. In the Far East, Tokyo, Bangkok in Thailand and Jakarta appear to be rivaling for the top spot in the worst traffic jams index. The issues facing the public transportation In the Jakarta metropolitan have overtaken the various efforts that are put in place to ease the concern of traffic snarl-ups are superseded by the jams with the Jakarta's spending an average of 63 hours in a traffic jam per year. 

The Jakarta monorail project initially shed light onto the dark side of commuting around Jakarta and would effectively reduce the number of hours that the Jakarta have to spend in snarl-ups on the roads per annum. The other critical decision made was to cancel the monorail project. The cancellation of the program in 2015 after the government had breathed life back to it in 2013 aroused the interest of the researchers and the public since the city appeared to be moving from worse to the worst as far as both the traffic jams and the public transportation system were concerned (Wagner, Mahayni, & Piller, 2016). The primary question revolved around the ideas that the city has to reduce the shortcomings facing public transport and the evident gridlock. The primary reasons that surrounded the cancelation of the Jakarta monorail project were the issues of high costs and legal disputes involved. Analysts of the project suggested that the program was a probable opportunity to grab the cash for the parties who were out to convince the Jakartan populace that their problems in traffic and poor public transportation revolved around having a monorail system in place (Wagner, Mahayni, & Piller, 2016). Therefore, the legal issue spotted in the speculation was that the Jakarta monorail system had corrupt parties behind it. The analysts also stated that the monorail system proposed for the city of Jakarta would fail from the first day owing to its expansiveness. 

Factors Influencing the Decision Made 

The decision to cancel the project in 2015 after the deliberate efforts to bring it back to life in 2013 was a point of interest to analysts and readers within the city and across the world (Putra, Woltjer, & Tan, 2016). However, the reasons for the cancelation seemed justifiable as they revolved around the high costs and legal issues that the project would bring to the city. The belief that the project had parties behind it propelling corruption was a sufficient reason to argue against the need for a monorail system for the Jakartans. A more in-depth probe into the belief resulted in the findings that some of the parties involved in making the crucial decisions that would oversee the beginning up to the end of the construction project were in a position to come up with pseudo consultants and experts who would carry out the necessary investigations (Putra, Woltjer, & Tan, 2016). The false consultants and experts would also advocate for the construction of the monorail to ease Jakarta's monorail problem. Looking at the chronology of projects within Jakarta's metropolitan area and the rest of the country, there was the evidence of interests in grabbing the cash offered to deliver a project to the citizens, which ended up being canceled, or remaining a dream for the Indonesians (Putra, Woltjer, & Tan, 2016). Therefore, the cancelation of the Jakarta monorail system was a good sign that the money involved in the project would not end up in the hands of the cartels whose minds were channeled towards embezzling a huge part of the cash that would be available on offer for the monorail program. 

The enormous costs involved in the construction of the monorail system were another factor that fueled the decision to cancel the project. The program was set to cost $ 1.5 billion with 90% of the money funded by Singaporean parties and the remainder covered by an Indonesian business mogul (Lo, 2018). The government initially gave the green light to the construction of the monorail system in a bid to connect Jakarta with its surroundings while at the same time reducing the traffic jam that has been ranked as one of the worst in the entire world. Notwithstanding, the Jakartan monorail project was left up in the air in 2015 with the governor stating the reasons as the contractor failing to fulfill all the requirements that were in place for the commencement and the advancing of the program (Lo, 2018). The company in charge of the program, PT Jakarta Monorail was reported to have stopped the construction by the media in 2015, which the organization retaliated by insisting that the work was still underway and led the public into believing that the company was still performing a loading test. The motorists within Jakarta continue to dream of having a reduction in their transportation problems (Lo, 2018). There is more than meets the eye in the suspension of the program, however. It was reported that a director working for the company responsible of constructing the monorail system admitted that the project was in a financial strain, which had led to the dubiousness attached to the completion within the initially stipulated timeframe. The original plan for the Jakarta monorail system was to have the investors raise 650 million United States dollars, own, and operate the monorail system before they would hand it back to the government of Jakarta (Lo, 2018). Due to financial turmoil, one of the investors hoped that the government would purchase a minimum of 30% of the Jakarta monorail project to sustain it economically. The refusal of the government to purchase the same meant trouble for the investors. The collapse of the project back in 2015, therefore, appeared to be more of a financial issue than the failure to meet the standards of construction that the governor had initially stated to justify the suspension of the program. 

Solutions to the Case Provided 

One of the solutions that will work in the place of the Jakarta monorail system is the light rail system. Popularly known as The Jakarta Light Rail Transit (Jakarta LRT) is currently under construction in the capital and is expected to have six stations and officially commence its operations in 2019 (Spears, Boarnet, & Houston, 2017). The light rail system is capital intensive just as the monorail system. Nonetheless, research in the field of transportation and specifically in the reduction of congestion suggests that the benefits of the system of transportation easily outweigh the costs incurred in the light rail transit project. The Jakarta LRT is expected to achieve a substantial reduction in the rate of traffic congestion within the city's metropolitan area. If used for public transportation, the light rail systems will replace most of the privately-owned cars since they also operate at a street level and are equally accessible to the passengers as the buses or their cars (Spears, Boarnet, & Houston, 2017). If the light rail system in Jakarta is made affordable to the public, most people will opt to use it as a means of traversing the metropolis, which will gradually reduce the congestion within the city. The light rail system will also reduce pollution compared to the bus system and the other modes of transportation since the LRT runs on electricity, which is a renewable source of energy. 

The other solution to the issue of traffic congestion in Jakarta is the introduction of the subway system. Jakarta has plans for the first subway system in Indonesia, the Jakarta MRT. Research has stated that subway systems are generally regarded as healthy and inspire productivity in the people who use the mode of transportation by making their psychology better (Haddad et al., 2015). For example, the subway systems minimize noise pollution by providing a calm mode of transport to passengers from a point to another. The subway system also offers timeliness within a city. Since the subway systems are constructed underground and run by electricity, they tend to run uninterrupted by the usual traffic jams as well as improve the efficiency of transportation. What is more among the benefits of the subway system is that it minimizes costs such as those consumed at the fuel prices used to run the other modes of transport such as the bus system (Haddad et al., 2015). With the increase in the costs of fuel across the globe and the anticipated gradual increase in the prices over the next few years, the subway system in Jakarta will become more famous for the residents of the city. 

Conclusion 

The Jakartan government has to make significant decisions to solve the issue of transportation within the city and the surrounding metropolitan area. The proposed Jakarta monorail system was expected to reduce the problems of poor transportation for the masses and congestion within the city. However, the project was deemed unfeasible due to the high costs involved thus straining the Jakarta government as well as the legal issues surrounding the program such as the presence of corrupt officials who would easily trick the Jakartan into consenting to the construction of the monorail system with their financial gain motives behind the incentive. Solutions to the problem are more advanced and beneficial modes of transport across the metropolis such as the light rail system and the subway system. However, the Jakartan government has to invest substantial amounts of money into the same. 

References 

Firman, T., Hudalah, D., & Salim, W. (2018). Spatial Planning and Urban Development In Jakarta’s Metropolitan Area. In Jakarta (pp. 58-74). Routledge. 

Haddad, E. A., Hewings, G. J., Porsse, A. A., Van Leeuwen, E. S., & Vieira, R. S. (2015). The 

Underground Economy: Tracking the Higher-Order Economic Impacts of the São Paulo Subway System. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice , 73 , 18-30. 

Lo, R. H. (2018). Rationality and Transport in Greater Jakarta. In Jakarta (pp. 75-103). Routledge. 

Putra, T. H., Woltjer, J., & Tan, W. G. Z. (2016). Metropolitan Governance and Institutional Design: Transportation in the Jakarta Metropolitan Region. In Decentralization and Governance in Indonesia (pp. 171-200). Springer, Cham. 

Spears, S., Boarnet, M. G., & Houston, D. (2017). Driving Reduction after the Introduction Of Light Rail Transit: Evidence from an Experimental-Control Group Evaluation of the Los Angeles Expo Line. Urban Studies , 54 (12), 2780-2799. 

Wagner, F., Mahayni, R., & Piller, A. (2016). Distressed City: The Challenges of Planning and Managing Megacity Jakarta. In Transforming Distressed Global Communities (pp. 207-234). Routledge.